No Sunning

After working some really long days where I didn’t see much outside my iBook monitor, I grabbed Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating, my foldable beach chair, and settled myself in a warm patch of Alamo Square Park.
I hadn’t been there five minutes when a woman and her dog approached from behind. They didn’t get too close — maybe a yard away — but I could still hear her say to her dog, “Are you going to sniff out the melanoma?”
The fuck?
I’m sorry, but when did sitting out in the sun — getting my Vitamin D, so my body can better absorb Calcium, saving me from acute osteoperosis — become as socially unacceptable as smoking?
Who the hell was I hurting? Not her. Not her dog. Not anyone around me. I wasn’t even assailing various senses by lying out in a itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini while smeared with gallons of oily cocoa butter. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, because, hey, if that’s your preferred method of getting sun, it’s your body and your skin and I’m not passing judgement.
Of course, as is my wont, I stewed for a full thirty minutes before thought of a very nasty response to the Judgemental Dog Walker to the tune of: “Hey, Lady? I just got out of the hospital where I spent three months at death’s door and this is the first bit of fresh air I’ve breathed since recovery.” Yes, it would have been a complete and utter lie, but when someone says shit like that, how the hell do they know that isn’t your story?
That’s just it, they don’t.
But see, I’m a nice person and I’m not very confrontational, so I didn’t make with the big lie. Although, seeing how underfed she looked, I wish I had my cat on a leash.
Then? I might’ve walked near her and said, “Are you going to sniff out the anorexia?”